The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(40)
Jared took her hand, his long fingers enveloping hers. It was a conscious effort not to cling. Reaction was setting in again.
‘I cannot say it is my pleasure, Lady Northam, because how could it be, under these circumstances? But it is my honour to serve you.’ He bowed, something of the swordmaster in that formality, and was gone.
Jared walked back to Great Ryder Street thinking of nothing but practicalities, letting his mind clear after the tension of the day. He had known she was grieving, of course, but Guinevere had been as tight as an over-wound spring and he cursed himself for not realising just how frightened she had been. He had no training or experience in understanding women under pressure, he realised. He could read a man’s mood from the myriad of tiny tells, the eyes, the hands, the flickering glance, the very posture, but a lady was trained from birth to present a front of tranquillity and not to show unbecoming or betraying emotions.
Women and sex, yes, he understood that. Dangerous women, cheerful women, angry women – all well within his field of experience. But ladies, now that was another matter. The only one he had been really close to since he had left home was Sophie, and her focus was almost entirely on Cal. There had been Cal’s first wife, of course, but she had been a Boston merchant’s daughter and not raised with the degree of repression that seemed to be normal for an English lady.
He was halfway through the door of the salle when he remembered how little he knew about Guinevere. She had married a viscount, her father had been a baronet and her maiden name was Holroyd. That was the first thing to check. Then set Dover on the trail of Mr Theo Quenten’s misdemeanours and while he was doing that Jared would study the maps of Yorkshire, reacquaint himself with the county of his birth, accustom himself to setting foot somewhere he had sworn never to go to again.
The funeral would be in five days. The Duke of Calderbrook had sent round his highly superior confidential secretary, George Prescott, the third son of Lord Warnley, to assist with the arrangements. To Guin’s huge relief he dealt with the undertaker, making the endless decisions about the things that the man seemed to find essential – the quality of the brass nails securing the baize coffin covering, the height of the plumes on the horses, the number of mutes to walk before and behind the hearse, the exact thickness of the cards to be sent out. It seemed endless.
‘Leave it all to me, Lady Northam. I am assuming you require dignity, quality and good taste rather than pomp and show.’ It was a statement, not a question, and she realised that, like Jared, he had scrutinized her rooms and made a judgement.
‘Exactly,’ Guin said and applied herself to ordering mourning, writing letters and spending time with Lucinda and Susan, Augustus’s daughters, and their families. It was exhausting, but she was grateful to them because it showed family solidarity with her – she was quite certain the Coroner was keeping himself well informed about who called – and comforting others kept her from giving way to her own grief and fear.
That worked during the day and into the evening, but in bed at night she wept for the kindly old man who had rescued her and, she admitted in the cold, still hours before dawn, for herself.
Jared called daily, conferred with the servants and with Mr Prescott, made polite, formal enquiries about her well-being and wrapped the household in a tight ring of protection.
To her huge relief he made no reference to that afternoon in his rooms. He was a sophisticated man, Guin told herself, one who would have no problem admitting an attraction for a woman and then moving on, completely unaffected, because it was unsuitable and unwise. She should try and be equally sophisticated and not let herself imagine for one moment what it would be like if it was ever not unsuitable, not unwise.
The day of the funeral passed somehow. The clocks in every room showed her that time was progressing normally and not, as it felt, running backwards. Guin only exchanged five words with Jared, the one figure who did not seem out of place amongst the mourners, familiar in his raven-black.
‘The day after tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
She turned away, conscious of his warning about their names being linked, and found Theo at her elbow. ‘Where are you going to?’ he asked.
He looked as pale as she felt, Guin thought. ‘Yorkshire, Allerton Grange. That is where this all started. I was going to call on your father tomorrow, if he is well enough for visitors. I haven’t seen him since the day we came back to Town.’
Theo shook his head. ‘Don’t come, Guin. It would only distress you and he would not know you. The doctors are keeping him heavily drugged now because of the pain. He doesn’t know any of us.’ His face was bleak. ‘At least he has been spared the news about his brother.’
‘I am so sorry.’ Guin put her hand on his arm and drew him down to sit beside her on the sofa. ‘Do they think it will be…’
‘Long?’ He ran both hands through his hair and Guin thought how much he had aged in the past few weeks. This wasn’t the feckless, careless youth any longer. Augustus’s death and his own father’s illness had sobered him. Unless it was guilt that was weighing on him. She told herself that was foolishness. Theo had much to gain, but all he had to do was to wait for nature to take its course with two elderly men. Risking murder would be insane and, although he was impulsive, surely an impulse would not last long enough to plot such a crime?